Australia won the first one-day international by seven wickets at Harare Sports Club early today (Melbourne time), thanks largely to a 144-run partnership between Ricky Ponting and Damien Martyn, but not in the swift, brutal way many expected.

After a week of cries for Zimbabwe's embattled team to be banished from the highest level of the game for the sins that have kept its 15 best players from taking the field, those who were left produced a surprising display of resilience and denied world champion Australia a quick kill.

Zimbabwe was led boldly 21-year-old captain Tatenda Taibu, who sent his young and inexperienced batsmen in against Australia's famously unforgiving bowlers. Taibu's lively 57 from 76 balls helped his team reach 9-205 from its 50 overs, taking advantage of some uncharacteristic bloopers in the field by the Australians.

The Australian chase began badly, but Ponting, Martyn and Adam Gilchrist ensured Matthew Hayden's golden duck, making the score 1-1, was no real cause for panic. Gilchrist, who made a restrained 26, and Ponting (91 from 93 balls) both fell to blinding catches taken by freewheeling No. 3 batsman, Vusi Sibanda.

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That left Martyn (74 not out) and Michael Clarke to painstakingly edge past Zimbabwe's score in the 40th over.

But Australia's earlier, underwhelming fielding performance included four dropped catches. Clarke and Andrew Symonds, one-day specialists who each arrived in Zimbabwe only a day or two before the match because of the late scrapping of the Test series, spilt three between them.

Glenn McGrath made a steady but not a spectacular return to international cricket after his eight-month injury hiatus. He demolished Sibanda's stumps and his figures of 1-35 from 10 overs would have been tidier had one over not been pounded for 11. In any case, he was upstaged by Jason Gillespie, who took 2-21 from his 10 and, as always, was unlucky not to capture more wickets.

But Zimbabwe would not be embarrassed. The first 20 overs were excruciatingly slow, as opener Brendan Taylor plodded towards his half-century, but the final 30 yielded 154 runs as Taibu enlivened the middle order. He played fearlessly after being dropped by Gilchrist off the left-arm spin of Darren Lehmann when he was on 18.

He heaved Symonds over the mid-wicket boundary for six, and later sent another full toss racing away for four. Mark Vermeulen smashed Symonds for a six and made 20 from 15 balls, in stark contrast to Taylor's 59 from 101.

Michael Kasprowicz bowled a stifling line and length for his 2-26, including Taibu, whose dismissal brought on a sudden lower-order collapse, including a couple of panicky run-outs.

Australian fast bowler Brad Williams left the field late in the Zimbabwean innings with back soreness after his five overs yielded 31 runs and the wicket of Dion Ebrahim for eight.